Robin Schone by Gabriel's Woman (10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

by its smell—it was his soap. His shampoo.

The man who had promised to protect her. If he could.

Victoria used Gabriel’s soap. And then she used Gabriel’s shampoo.

And then she turned her face up into the summer shower until she used up all of the water in the mixing

chamber.

For a few brief moments she recaptured the joy that comes with innocence. And then that, too, was

gone.

Her joy.

Her innocence.

Victoria opened her eyes and stared at the copper-skinned woman with dark, slicked-back hair.

The copper panels were beaded with water, like a window pelted by rain.

Silver water slowly streamed down the copper-skinned woman’s body in slow, sinuous rivulets; her

features were blurred, surreal, unashamedly sensuous.

Woman before the condemnation of man.

It was strangely empowering, gazing at the copper-skinned woman. The illusion of power did not

dissipate when Victoria stepped out of the copper grotto.

The pale blue towel draped over the wooden rail beside the bathtub was soft, thick, luxurious.

Victoria used Gabriel’s towel.

The mirror above the marble basin was fogged with steam. There was no pale-skinned, dark-haired

reflection to replace the copper image inside the shower.

Victoria Childers, for a few moments, did not exist.

A silver-blond hair was trapped between the teeth of an ivory comb.

A sharp pang stabbed through her chest. You don’t want me, she had accused

Gabriel.

You would be surprised at what I want, mademoiselle, he had replied.

Victoria used Gabriel’s comb. Considerably more strands of water-blackened hair joined the single

silver-blond strand.

Scalding tears stung her eyes.

Determinedly clinging to the illusion of control, Victoria opened the top drawer underneath the marble

wash basin. She gazed at an ivory-handled toothbrush.

Gabriel’s toothbrush.

Her own wooden toothbrush was inside her reticule, with the letters and her small, snaggle-toothed

comb.

There had been two pots au chocolat on the dinner tray the night before. Had he returned after

Victoria had retired?

Had he eaten the pot au chocolati

Exactly what had the man done to Gabriel that he would not touch a woman?

Rummaging through the satinwood drawer, Victoria found another toothbrush: it was identical to Gabriel

’s ivory-handled one. It appeared to be unused.

She used it. And then she used Gabriel’s tooth glass beside the water basin to rinse out her mouth.

Victoria was clean as she had not been in many months. It was exhilarating.

Her drawers were still damp. There was nothing to do but to wait for them to dry. And to don a dress

that was not clean, no matter how hard Victoria worked to keep it so.

Suddenly shivering from the cold and the slick wet hair clinging to her back and her buttocks, she opened

the bathroom door.

It was not night.

Bright electric light flooded the bedchamber.

A small woman with flaming red hair stood by the valet chair where Victoria had draped her dress the

night before. A small blue hat with a jaunty peacock feather perched on top of the petite woman’s elegantly

coifed hair. Behind her, a petite woman with flaming red hair and a matching blue hat and peacock feather

was reflected inside the cheval mirror.

Both images disdainfully held Victoria’s brown wool dress away from them—as if afraid of vermin. The

slender back of the red-haired woman was stiff; the expression on her rouged and wrinkled face was one

of disgust.

No sooner had the intruder’s presence registered in Victoria’s brain, than the older woman glanced up.

They stared at each other in silence: one through shocked eyes, the other through critical ones.

The red-haired woman summed Victoria up like the men and women who had witnessed her auction.

Shock gave way to rousing anger.

The woman had no right to judge Victoria—either her actions or her clothing.

A pearl collar gleamed about her throat. The sale of that pearl collar would feed every single homeless

person in London.

Victoria had the choice of hiding inside the bathroom or hiding behind her hands.

Or of taking back what was hers.

Pride.

Dignity.

Her dress.

She strode toward the older woman and jerked the brown wool dress out of unresisting hands.

The woman was short, no more than five feet tall; Victoria had to bend her head to gaze down at her

from her own height of five feet eight inches.

Clutching the dress against her breasts so that brown wool concealed her body shoulder to feet, Victoria

stepped back, dignity regained.

“I’m afraid you have come to the wrong bedchamber, madam,” she said frigidly.

“Madame” the older woman imperiously corrected her. “I am Madame René.”

She spoke as if she were French royalty, or at the very least, as if Victoria should recognize her name.

Nevertheless, madame” Victoria bit out, “you are in my bedchamber. Be so good as to leave.”

“This chambre de coucher, mademoiselle, belongs to Monsieur Gabriel, not you. We are not in the habit

of making house visits. Vite . .. there is no time to waste. I have clients waiting for me.”

Clients . .. men?... waiting for her?

Was the older woman a. prostitute?

Hands far stronger than Victoria’s yanked the wool away from her.

For a second Victoria wondered if Gabriel had sneaked up behind her and grabbed the dress. But there

were only the two of them inside the bedchamber: an elegant, petite old woman of indeterminate age

dressed in the height of fashion, and a thirty-four-year-old woman who wore